


Excess of Time

by thisbluespirit



Category: Sapphire and Steel
Genre: Community: hc_bingo, Elemental Weirdness, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Intoxication, Time bomb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-29 05:34:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16738075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisbluespirit/pseuds/thisbluespirit
Summary: There’s a clock, counting down to the end, and Copper’s in no state to stop it…





	Excess of Time

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Hurt/Comfort Bingo square "deadline/time bomb" and 100 Element prompt #12 "Copper - intoxication & time bomb."

14:58

14:57

14:45

The digital clock radio was counting down backwards – steadily for a few minutes and then by leaps and bounds before reverting to a more sedate pace. The day was turning in reverse with it, and once they hit 00:00 that would be the end. It wasn’t going to take long at this rate. Everything here would stop. Everything everywhere, if someone else didn’t mend the break before it become a chasm. The structures of time would shatter.

An electrical item like this should have been no problem for Copper to dismantle but as soon as he picked it up, he was assailed by an unusually indistinct sense of something being off-kilter. He let go, and shuffled away from it across the floor, before turning his head to frown at the offending article. He found the numbers on the display had become blurry red lights. His vision had been affected. Copper sagged back down on the carpet in confusion and, when he tried to reach for the clock again, he missed it, his co-ordination failing him. That should have been impossible.

He stopped, pulling back and looking down at his hands. Precision was his nature; it was built in. Now, he couldn’t bring the clock into focus. What number was it at now? He squinted, struggling to read it. An 8, or 0 – no, it couldn’t be 0 yet. Something was breaking through and it was already having an impact on him.

The only way to stop it was to reset the clock. It was a simple matter; he could do it. He pulled out delicate tools from his breast pocket, one by one and laid them down, trying to steady himself. One of them slid out of his grasp, hitting the carpet at an odd angle. It felt as if everything else was slipping away, too – thoughts, time, tools, connections. 

He drew in his breath and frowned at the clock. The numbers wouldn’t make sense. Why did he need them to? He watched the steady flashing of the red lights as the numbers danced and counted down to doomsday. Pretty lights, he thought, and slumped back against the wall.

No, wait. He put a hand to his head, marshalling what concentration was left to him. _Sapphire_ , he called. He couldn’t even think what to ask her for. He needed help but why? With what? 

_Copper. What’s wrong?_

_The clock. I can’t – I’m being affected by it. By something._ He couldn’t keep his alarm back. Where was his usual effortless control? He closed his eyes. _I can’t stop it._

Sapphire was downstairs, but he could almost see the haughty raise of her head as she responded: _Yes, you can. You must._

Those two things were not the same.

“It’s serious, isn’t it?” said Sapphire, not from downstairs, but beside him. Copper wasn’t sure how much time had passed between the last thing she’d said and this.

He pulled himself into a sitting position by means of the wall, afraid suddenly of being at her mercy, undefended against her considerable powers. What could she not shape him into?

Sapphire merely turned to the clock. “11:11, 11:10,” she read, kneeling beside him, putting out a hand towards him. “Let me see for you.”

“Don’t,” he said, flinching before she could touch him.

“I won’t hurt you.” She sounded amused.

Copper nodded. “No. I know. That was… irrational of me. But still – keep back.”

“I will,” she said, keeping watch on the clock. “10:38. It’s jumped again.”

“You mustn’t touch me,” Copper said. “Time is distorting everything in this room somehow. The effect is like a poison. Limit your contact with everything here, including me.”

Sapphire became very still, taking in his statement and checking it against her readings of the room for confirmation. “I see. And you touched the source – the clock. In that case, we had better hurry. I’ll talk you through what you have to do.” She kept back against the wall. “There was an incident here. Pills and alcohol. It _is_ poison, Copper. You’re in a state of intoxication.”

“Yes,” he said. Even in his inefficient, fuzzy state, it made sense of the off-kilter feeling in the room. It didn’t help him fight it, though. Humans would probably purge themselves to be rid of the poison, but he had accidentally absorbed a moment of time, and he couldn’t shake it off. Sapphire might be able to, but they couldn’t risk her falling into the same state.

Copper prised himself up off the carpet, and grasped hold of the clock, both hands around it and still he felt it might wriggle out of his hands like a fish struggling to get back into the water.

“I promised not to touch you,” said Sapphire from the sidelines, sounding further away. Copper shook himself. That was him again, not her. “What if I didn’t – what if I took control?”

“It would be…” What was the word? 

“09:32. The clock is jumping forward at an increased rate. Let me control you.”

 _Dangerous_ , that was it. “We might both be incapacitated.”

“I think not. 09:21. The rate is increasing again. 09:00.” 

Copped nodded. _Yes._ If the clock reached 00:00, there would indeed be no time left. 

Sapphire barely waited for him to say it. Her eyes were already beginning to glow a vivid blue, and then his mind was swamped. There was a great deal of blue, dark blue, and his part was to let go, but it was not something that came naturally to him.

_You’re hardly you just now as it is._

Copper slid away into no place, and as everything faded, he heard Sapphire’s voice echoing inside and outside his being: “08:46. 08:13. 07:02…”

 

The next thing he knew he was midway through disassembling the innards of the clock – wires and circuit boards in his hands. He turned his head to the dial, which was still lit, but it had halted the countdown. 01:42. 

_Good work, Sapphire._

“I’m glad you’re back,” said Sapphire from the wall. “Finish it, Copper.”

Copper reached for a scalpel like device and considered three wires closely, before slicing through one. The lights went off and the feeling of something like oppressive grey clouds around him in the room receded. Sunlight slipped in the window. Time was moving in the right direction again.

“Something’s wrong?” he said to Sapphire, standing, and brushing away small pieces of plastic-coated wiring and dust.

She shook her head. “Not now. You came through again at the right moment. It was beginning to affect me, too. I wish Steel had been here.”

“The clock is disabled. Can you check that was the trigger? I’m still –” He waved a hand, frowning in frustration. The fog had cleared out of his mind and it was working again, but he could feel the alien after-affects lingering and couldn’t yet push them aside. His head ached, and he felt a desire to sleep that was so unfamiliar he was almost curious enough to pursue it and see where it would lead.

Sapphire walked steadily around the room, examining the clutter – the mess left by its absent inhabitant – and then returned to him. “Yes. It was the clock. Which was what we were told.”

“A quick, simple business,” said Copper with a quirk of his mouth, mocking the errors of their briefing. “Yes. Sapphire –”

She put a hand to his sleeve, and the last of the clock’s influence evaporated. Everything was clear again: he could look around the room and see every electrical device, sense the wiring behind the walls, and the connections that existed between them all. Measurements, calculations, an awareness of time, and more; they were all his again. “Thank you.”

Sapphire smiled. “Well, we couldn’t risk Silver seeing you in that state, could we?”

“Perish the thought,” said Copper, but without any vehemence. He gave the room one last, more thorough survey, now that it was in his capacity to do so again, and was satisfied. “Let’s go.”


End file.
